Caderno De Desenho Bobbie Good

What I actually think about caderno de desenho bobbie good after using it for a while

I picked up a caderno de desenho bobbie good about eight months ago because I needed something portable for commission work and didn't want to haul a full art kit everywhere. It arrived wrapped in plastic, the cover was slightly warped from shipping, and the paper had that stiff, almost waxy feel you get when it hasn't been broken in yet. The first few pages made me set it aside for a week. I came back to it with a mechanical pencil and some dilute ink washes, and it started making more sense.

caderno de desenho bobbie good

The thing that matters most about this particular notebook isn't the cover or the binding — it's the paper weight and tooth. It sits around 140 gsm, which puts it somewhere between a standard journal and actual drawing paper. You can do light graphite work without much issue. Charcoal is where it starts to break down. If you aggressively rub charcoal onto these pages, the tooth lifts and the paper fibers roll into little balls. I learned that the hard way on a piece where I was trying to blend a shadow with my finger. The fix was switching to a tortillon and applying significantly less pressure than I normally would. Another thing nobody tells you about this notebook: the spiral binding creates dead zones along the edges. Any drawing that requires precise line work near the spiral will have a slight gutter interference, especially if you're pressing hard. I worked around this by flipping the page you're working on over and resting your hand on the blank reverse side. The double-layer support stops the spiral from digging into your lines. It's an annoying workaround but it works.

The ink situation is worth talking about separately. These pages accept water-based media fine — watercolor pencils, gouache thinned down, brush pens. Alcohol-based markers are where things fall apart. The ink pools on the surface instead of absorbing, and if you go over the same area twice it beads up and looks terrible. I tried using a Copic Marker on page twelve and the result looked like someone spilled dish soap on paper. I switched to water-based brush pens and haven't looked back. One practical thing about the caderno de desenho bobbie good that catches people off guard: the paper bleeds through on the reverse side if you use even moderate layers of any liquid medium. A single pass with a marker looks clean. Two passes and you're going to see the ghost of it on the next page. I started separating my wet media pages with the scrap paper I keep in my bag, and it's saved me from losing half a sketchbook to bleed-through more times than I can count.

The size is 21 by 29 centimeters, which is close enough to A4 that most storage solutions meant for standard sketchbooks will fit it. That said, the binding adds about four millimeters of bulk that most standard portfolio sleeves don't account for. You'll need a slightly larger sleeve or just fold the edges of a standard one. It's a small thing but it matters if you're carrying it in a messenger bag alongside other gear. Here's the honest part that most reviews skip: this notebook is not a professional-grade sketchbook. The paper will handle light work well, and for quick thumbnailing, gesture drawings, and concept sketches it's perfectly adequate. But if you're doing finished work that requires heavy layering, erasing, rework, or any kind of mixed media that goes beyond the light water-soluble range, you'll outgrow it quickly. I've seen people post finished drawings on social media using this notebook and wonder why the work looks flat compared to what they've done on better paper. The answer is usually that the surface can't hold enough pigment layers to build up real depth.

If you're looking for something more robust and you're already investing in this notebook, the caderno de desenho bobbie good is fine as a secondary sketchbook for warm-ups and practice sessions. For final pieces, I'd recommend moving to a 180 to 200 gsm cold-press paper. The jump in price is noticeable but the difference in how the work actually looks is permanent. You can't add texture to smooth paper later. I keep mine in a flat file when it's not in use because the spiral binding tends to curl the edges if you stack heavy things on top of it. That curling is cosmetic on the outside but it affects how flat the pages lie when you open to a specific spread. I've tried weighing them down with books overnight and the curl only partially relaxes. It's not a dealbreaker, just something to manage.

If you want to buy one, you can usually find it through the Bobbie Good website or major art supply retailers. The price point is mid-range, not budget, which means the expectations should be calibrated accordingly. It's not a $5 notebook, but it's also not a $40 Moleskine artisan paper. It sits in the middle, and it performs like something in the middle — reliable for its intended use, limiting if you push past those limits.